Soul Searching
by Cella N
Summary: Naoto's journey in finding another home, and herself in the process. BADOU. NAOTO. And the person she becomes.
1. Are We Human

**Spoilers:** Up to chapter 38  
**A/N:** Hey, Lynn. Guess it'll take me 5 fucking parts to get Badou get laid at last, but I'll make it worth it. Bear with me here people, this will be five chapters long and I will finish it or I'm committing seppuku. Lyrics belong to The Killers. Which is ironic for this fandom, really.

**Soul Searching:  
Are We Human **

_will your system be alright  
when you dream of home tonight?  
there is no message we're receiving  
let me know is your heart still beating_

_

* * *

  
_

The old woman, Liza, gave Naoto the prettiest dress she could find on such a short notice. Not that Naoto had insisted for her style to be revamped, but the old woman sure had, and there was no messing around with the authority of the elders. The length of the skirt reached down to her knees, the lace around the edges brushing against the back of her knees and tickling her there; it was white, a vast difference between what she usually wore. Naoto had about three dresses in the suitcase she kept back at her place, and all of them were dark coloured. She also held them in a suitcase, because she had a plan of leaving this place as soon as her big fight was fought, but that was another story. Her new dress was not for a lolita, but rather for a woman. It hugged the curves it had to, and fluttered around just enough to taunt whatever onlooker, and covered her scars. It brought out the paleness of her skin, the dark colour of her eyes and hair, and the fragile-looking shape of her bone-structure. It made her look like a pixie.

She tainted it with blood about ten minutes after Liza's helpers had stuffer her inside it.

* * *

She had always associated the smell of copper with death and blood and sorrow. It reminded her often of herself, that night when Fuyumine had found her under her parents' corpses. Maybe that was why she tried to kill as little as possible. She left her enemies crippled enough to ensure that they wouldn't follow her in fear of going through the same treatment again, or worse. Normally she would leave them when they were writhing in pain on the floor, far from being dead, but panicked enough to know that she, with her pixie shapes and her warrior eyes, was someone to be avoided from there onwards.

It was a lesson she had taught herself, because while Fuyumine had, apparently, made a business of rescuing injured children, he had no qualms against massacre. It had been her own way of rebelling against the one person she remembered with enough clarity to love as a father. Perhaps if she had been a better protégé to the old man, she would have lived for the thrill of the kill, like Magato. Like Heine. In a way, she was like Heine, but only when she fought. Naoto lived her life by going through the boundaries she'd set for herself at an earlier age. She didn't instigate fights unless necessary, nor did she condone gratuitous violence. She never killed.

There would only be one person she would kill in her life, and she had yet to find that person; or better said, yet to see more than a glimpse of her. Until that moment came, Naoto refused to take a life; she might have been named after the one who'd tried to kill her, but she refused to _become_ her namesake. It was the only way she had of shaping her own destiny.

She had always associated the smell of copper with death, and blood, and sorrow.

* * *

When Mihai brought Badou to them, they were both covered in blood—Badou's. Heine was already going crazy after the final fight against his 'brother', whose acquaintance Naoto's blade had had the pleasure of making, because while she and Heine weren't friends, she would have rather he not die—Nill would be too sad. So as soon as Badou was brought in, Heine made himself scarce.

"Tell me you know how to sew," Mihai spoke, his voice tired and battle-worn. He looked like an Atlas, holding the world on his shoulders, only his world was small and skinny and usually loud.

"He won't die," Naoto said, helping him carry Badou to a pew of the church. She had no idea how to sew, but she knew a lot about healing herself. Bullet wounds happened to be her speciality.

As she hurried up to raid Bishop's First Aid Kit, she noticed that her new white dress was red, and smelled like copper.

* * *

Badou woke up the next day, and she was there to hear him speak his first words. Unsurprisingly, they were a demand for a cigarette. Naoto placed one between his lips, but did not light it. "You're still too injured for this," she said, going back to polishing her sword with the meticulousness of someone who did it whenever stressed. And she was; she was antsy and anxious, and wanted Badou out of her bed, because he didn't belong in it. But then again, she didn't belong in it either, never had.

After patching him up, Mihai had told her that he needed to lay low and possibly hide until shit calmed down. Naoto mentioned that he'd have to stay in the last place anyone would look for him, and Mihai helped her transport Badou's unconscious body to her place, much to her dislike.

"Don't fucking tell me I'm injured, tranny, okay? Shit, I _know_ I am, I can feel it. Actually, I'm feeling it a bit too much here, so could you just light the fucking cigarette before I go crazy, too?" he snapped at her, and Naoto, because she wasn't really affected by his health and the road to hell he'd decided to take it down, lit his cigarette.

He exhaled very little smoke, which meant he'd swallowed most of it; which made him a freak of nature. "You're a shitty nurse," he mumbled around the stick, finished it, then promptly went back to sleep.

Naoto frowned at him, telling herself that he was such an idiot; what sort of a PI didn't even ask about his whereabouts? Then it occurred to her that maybe he hadn't because he'd thought that he was safe with her. It made her feel strange, but not at all bad. She went back to polishing her sword, and noted with a certain feeling of longing that it was the first time in years this place smelled of cigarette smoke. It was also the first time in years that it smelled of blood.

She got up from her seat near his sick-bed when she was certain he was fast asleep and wouldn't wake up screaming like a maniac, and went to take a shower. The pipes in this warehouse had always been rusty, and rattled as if what passed through them was wind instead of water, but at least the water was hot enough to scorch her when she needed to scrub herself clean. There was a dent in the wall, just under the shower head: she had punched the wall there, after scrubbing herself clean of Magato's touch just stopped working, and when she was so angry at Fuyumine for looking like he cared, that she had took it against the wall.

She was well aware that she slept with her ghosts and the skeletons in her closet, and that it was unhealthy and made her feel like shit most of the time, but sometimes it was okay. Sometimes she would stop in front of a certain room, and remember the lesson she'd taught herself there by watching him, or the nth attempt at killing him there, and she would smile. Other people smiled at the memories of their childhoods because they were full of laughter and playing in the sandbox; Naoto smiled when she remembered the feel of the blade in her hand, because it was the only thing she could associate with Fuyumine anymore that didn't make her want to revive him and beat him up for all his lies.

She got inside the shower of her quiet bathroom, listened to the pipes rattle, and scrubbed, and scrubbed, until she didn't smell of cigarette smoke and blood anymore, until her skeletons disappeared and the warehouse became just a place where she lived.

* * *

"So, why _are_ you my nurse?" was what Badou asked that evening, when Naoto returned from Buon Viaggio with two servings of pasta bolognesa neatly dumped inside a plastic Tupperware.

"No-one else would have you," she replied in a monotone voice, but there was a bark beneath that reply, and Badou seemed to notice, because he smiled like he really _had_ gone crazy. Naoto lit another cigarette and held it out to him.

"Where are we?" he asked, finally having the intelligence to look around him.

Naoto knew there wasn't much to look at. The sleeping bag on which she'd been sleeping since they brought him here, the bed, and the suitcase. "My room," she replied, and started to take their food out of the bag. There was a serving of soup in a Thermos, undoubtedly for Badou who shouldn't be eating anything solid. Naoto wondered if he wouldn't be happier if they simply injected nicotine into his veins from here after and forgot about food altogether.

"Shit," he mumbled, and for a moment Naoto wished he would revert back to the loudmouthed idiot she'd known two days ago. "This place ain't a room, it's a people trap." For all his stupidity, he had his share of brilliance.

"What happened to you?" she asked, handing him the Thermos.

"How'd you get your scar?" he asked in turn, taking a gulp of the soup and pulling a face.

"None of your business," she answered, sitting down in the other side of the room and digging into her food with hunger.

"Yeah, neither is my sob-story," he said, and the conversation died off after that.

* * *

Badou remained at her place for one more day, before Bishop and Heine came to carry him back to the church because he'd had enough of being an invalid.

Naoto cleaned the room after he left, throwing the bed sheets out instead of simply washing them, and noted that her room smelled like cigarette smoke. She opened the windows wide, and tried not to think about how Fuyumine's coat had smelled the first days after his death, when traces of the cigarettes he used to smoke still remained on it.

The warehouse was again silent, the pipes still rattled, and her three—now four—dresses still remained inside the suitcase, like the skeletons remained in her closet and everywhere else too. She knew everything was the same as usual, but she wondered why it felt different. Like something was missing.

It wasn't until the smell of cigarette smoke was gone that she realised what it was that she was missing, and by then it was too late to do anything but take a shower, and scrub, and scrub, until she could safely pretend the absence didn't bother her.


	2. Candlelight

**Spoilers:** Up to chapter 38  
**A/N:** On Easter Sundays, Orthodox Christians usually gather up in their churches, and help each other light up their candles, passing the candlelight from one hand to another, like a chain of people, and unity. This chapter represents Naoto's first baby steps towards growth, and Badou being a stupid idiot. The song belongs to Frou Frou.

* * *

**Soul Searching:  
Candlelight**_  
Washing my hands, of the  
Many years untold  
For now I am banned, my  
Future is to unfold_

_

* * *

  
_

It was Easter Sunday, and Bishop's church was full of people who wanted to believe in someone up there that could help them or someone to blame for all the injustice in the world. Naoto observed the ceremony with practiced detachment, a skill she'd acquired when under Fuyumine's wing. Women might appear fragile creatures, and so no-one paid them any attention—and for that reason, they made excellent observers.

The congregation gathered up in the church's backyard at midnight, when Saturday bled into Sunday, and listened carefully to the melodic sound of the Bishop's voice as he filled their heads and hearts with what they needed to hear. They were celebrating, theoretically, the rebirth of Jesus Christ; Naoto thought that they were celebrating hope. Most of the people there didn't even know what Christianity stood up for, but they still went to church because Bishop's way of taking forward the word of God was befitting of their world—he allowed them to believe in whatever God suited them best, and preached that which all religions had in common. Respect, love, and peace.

Naoto thought it was very beautiful from her standpoint, leaning against the wall in a corner of the church, watching them as they passed the light and fire from one candle to another. Hope. Nill's tiny fingers wrapped around Naoto's wrist, and the older girl looked down, a soft and almost imperceptible smile already on her lips.

"You want a candle, too?" she asked the girl, grabbing her tiny hand softly and leading her with tiny steps towards the stand where candles were being given out. Nill's smile grew, and when they reached the stand, she held out two fingers towards the attendant, gracefully taking both candles in her nimble hands.

Naoto observed this, but there was no detachment, because Nill had always managed to make her feel _involved_, whether it be through of her smiles, or the need to protect her. She watched over the little girl as she skipped towards a church-goer, and held out her candle to be lit. She watched as the stranger smiled, and Nill smiled, and the exchange was made and Nill's candle was lit. Hope.

Then she watched as Nill walked back to her, until they were standing in front of each other, and offered her the unlit candle. "For me?" Naoto asked, and blushed slightly under Nill's innocent smile. If the girl knew all she had done before meeting her, maybe she wouldn't smile so willingly at her. "But I don't…" she started, because she didn't actually believe in any god. She didn't need it—she already knew who to blame for all her unfair life. Nill's expression made her change her mind, and she took the candle. It was strange, almost slippery, almost sticky, sweaty from where Nill's hands had grabbed it too tightly. It was white, translucent and simple.

Nill held out her candle, passing her candlelight to Naoto's candle, and for a second, Naoto forgot how to breathe. _An angel was giving her hope_. And for a second, Naoto remembered she was just a lost soul.

* * *

Sunday at lunch, Buon Viaggio opened only for a select few. The people in their town, even the mobsters and gangsters, all respected the tradition of eating with their respective families. At Buon Viaggio, Naoto stood in Kiri's kitchen, looking down at the array of trays on the table that were waiting to be carried off to the table.

"They're not going to break in your hands, you know?" said a girl, short and pretty, who was looking at Naoto as if she was the strangest creature alive. And she probably was. "Have you ever waited before?"

Naoto shook her head, then remembered that because Kiri had so gracefully extended an invitation to a 'family Easter lunch' to her, the least she could do was be civil. Which in other words, meant _talk_: "No, only newspaper delivery," she replied, her voice but a hush amongst the noise of food cooking in the kitchen.

"Well," said the girl, grabbing Naoto's forearm and smiling mischievously, "As long as you don't throw them at anyone's head, you should do just fine!"

Naoto offered her a smile, and picked up a tray with meat. She wasn't sure what sort of meat it was, but it did smell good. It beat all the spaghetti she could've eaten in a year, even though Kiri's chefs made good spaghetti too.

"I'm Mimi," the girl said, tilting her head and looking up at Naoto and Naoto's tray as though she was trying hard not to laugh at how strange and domestic it looked.

"Naoto," answered Naoto, and opened the door with her shoulder, stepping into the restaurant. She carried the tray to the table, setting it down somewhere in the middle.

"Holy shit, tranny. You almost made me do a double-take there, what are you _wearing_?" Of course, 'family Easter lunch' involved also Badou. "You look like a _girl_."

As she glared at him, somewhere at the end of the table, Heine snickered under the attentive and a bit reproachful gaze of Nill. He controlled himself quickly, and looked away from the little angel as if she was a mother scolding a naughty child.

Meanwhile, Naoto paused in her thoughts to look down at her attire—another one of grandma Liza's creations—a soft, blue skirt, a white button-up shirt with embroidery, and knit stockings. She looked like a shepherdess, she thought, but reserved that opinion to herself.

"Badou," she said in a monotonous voice, "You almost made me do a double-take there, you actually managed to look like a _man_," she finished; stood up straight, turned around, and left with her head held high and a smirk on her face, mostly because she liked the sound of Mimi's laughter at Badou's indignation.

As she entered the kitchen again, she came face to face with Kiri. Although she'd known the woman since she'd been a child under Fuyumine's care, her beauty and elegance never ceased to amaze Naoto. She was aware that she was a graceful person, but Kiri managed to make Naoto's gracefulness look average. The woman smiled at Naoto, and put a large plate full of mashed potatoes in her hands.

"Take this to the table," she instructed, and Naoto nodded, ready to go. "Naoto?" Kiri stopped her, then hesitated herself before saying, softly, "You've changed since back then…I almost didn't think you were able to speak more than three words at the time."

Naoto blushed under that critique, and gripped the plate tighter in her hands. Of course, it was true. "It's a nice change," Kiri continued, her melodious voice reaching into Naoto's soul and wrapping up around her heart. "Keep it up."

After offering her a nod, they both split ways, and as Naoto walked towards the dining table, she realised why:

Bishop was regaling Mihai with fake stories of his youth, and preaching against foul language to an attentive Mimi who kept giving an uninterested Badou pointed looks. Nill and Heine were hunched over a plate, Nill watching closely as Heine cut a slice of meat into tiny bite-size bits with a knife and a fork; then Heine passed the knife and the fork to Nill, watching closely as the girl hesitated and then imitated his moves, and smirking a smirk that was actually a smile when she managed to cut it at last. Badou kept smoking and talking above Bishop, telling Mimi about his latest successful mission, and shouting "It was about damn time, tranny, some of us were getting hungry here!" at Naoto when she was in his peripheral vision. Then all eyes were on her, and she set the food on the table before taking a seat between Mimi and Badou, and breathed in the atmosphere.

This. This was a family.

* * *

In the following hours, Naoto enjoyed her first family lunch-that-turned-into-dinner, and experienced the real warmth of a home, of people who care about her. Even if the home was a restaurant, and even if the people who cared about her did it either because she'd saved their lives, or was helpful in some tasks; Naoto didn't care about their motives. For one day, she put motives behind her, and forgot about why Fuyumine helped her, why he tried to shape her into something he wanted; she forgot about the past, _willingly_, and found it within her to forgive.

She forgave the only father she'd ever known, for having lied to her, for having tried to turn her into something of his own convenience, for having turned her into it successfully. She forgave, and thanked him. Thanked him for telling her to not give up, never give up, always fight back, even when it hurts, because that was what life was about.

In the following hours, Naoto remained mostly silent and watched with barely disguised interest as Mihai, Bishop, Heine and Badou got drunk on hot, spicy wine, and enjoyed the sound of Mimi and Kiri's scolding them. When dinner was over, and everyone had found a room to sleep in—conveniently, Kiri offered them the empty rooms above her restaurant as shelter for the night—Naoto found herself alone in the restaurant, unable to sleep.

Her bed had been too soft, and Nill's silent breathing had disconcerted her. It had reminded her of the time that Badou had been brought into her warehouse until he'd healed, and of how hard it had been for her to move past the longing to catch the scent of tobacco again. Or maybe the scent of tobacco and foul language and eye patches and red hair.

In the silence that ruled over the restaurant, Naoto picked up a broom and started to sweep the floor. She listened to her own breathing, and the _swish, swish_ of the broom against the floor, and forgot that she was down here because she couldn't sleep. For a minute, she imagined herself to be a tiny pixie that came in the middle of the night and cleaned the house, leaving it ready for its owners in the morning, in gratitude for the food they left at her small, tiny door. Once the floor was clean, Naoto left the broom against a wall, and went into the kitchen to get a garbage bag.

She found him there, smoking.

The first thing she noticed as she stepped into the kitchen was the scent of tobacco enveloping her, and—she knew this by listening to him exhale as she entered—the scent of red hair, and foul language, and eye patches were soon to follow.

"You shouldn't smoke in the kitchen," she warned him in a silent whisper, brushing past his form—leaning casually against the counter—to grab what she was there for.

"Stop bossing me around," he grumbled, silent and a bit too tame for Badou. She looked at him over her shoulder, a bit of worry slipping into her frown. "What?" he snapped, taking a drag of the cigarette.

"Nothing," she answered after a while, after he'd blown the smoke in her direction unconsciously, and she'd inhaled it, unconsciously as well. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Heine snores," he answered, "And so do Mihai, and the Bishop." Of course, Kiri had made all the men sleep in the same room—but different bunks.

Naoto smirked, taking the roll of garbage bags and ripping off one. "So sensible, Badou," she teased him, maybe the aftermath of that glass of warm wine she'd drank. Four hours ago. (Or maybe the way he managed to make her feel awkward and comfortable at the same time.)

"Shut up, tranny, I bet you snore like a fucking truck driver," he barked at her, snubbing out the cigarette into an ashtray nearby.

"You never complained before," she reminded him, and slipped past him again and back into the restaurant. He followed, maybe eager for some bickering, or…something.

"That's because you put drugs into that soup, admit it."

She gave him a look. "Yes, to keep you quiet," she answered, dumping the remains of a plate into the bag. "It worked poorly."

Badou looked at her for a while, and Naoto ignored his attention for a while, busying herself with cleaning the mess they'd all made. "You're downright fucking creepy when you make jokes, you know?" he said after a few minutes, sitting down on the edge of the table she was cleaning with a napkin.

She was silent, sweeping the bread crumbs off the table in perfect, geometrical, circular movements. When her hand brushed the side of his hip, she looked up into his eye, and said: "Who said I was joking?"

Of course, she was joking even then, but he didn't need to know that she had a sense of humour. In an odd, sadistic way, she enjoyed watching him squirm with the uncertainty of whether she was serious or not. His expression was priceless; Naoto let out a small noise that could have been a laugh, her lips forming a smile.

"Tranny…" he called to her, silent; his hand had moved, now wrapped around Naoto's bare arm, demanding attention. "Stop being a confusing bitch," he said, glaring at her, and confusing her just like he claimed she was confusing him.

"What did I do?" she asked, curiosity and innocence finally showing their heads in her personality.

He never answered her that night, and Naoto would continue not to know the answer. It was a pity, because if she had known, maybe she would've been able to affront the events that were to follow more easily. But because she didn't, when Badou pulled her closer and pressed his mouth against her, Naoto could only do what she did best: her mind drew a blank.

He insisted, maybe because he knew that she had no idea what was happening, and held their mouths like that—touching in a parody of a kiss—until Naoto relaxed enough for her lips to stop being anything but a firm line. And then, just as her eyelids were closing, and she was starting to draw in a deep breath through her nose, he pulled away, leaving her empty and unfulfilled.

"There was mistletoe," he blurted out, and pushed himself off the table; it took him three seconds to disappear from the restaurant.

Naoto remained frozen in time and space; her lips tasted like wine and cigarette smoke, she observed when she licked them experimentally. Confused, unprepared and awkward, she pushed the experience into a corner of her mind and returned to cleaning the table.

Then, about an hour later, as she laid in bed waiting to sleep, she murmured to nobody in particular: "But it's Easter…"


End file.
